Reply to "question for coz"

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you, been working on my car getting it ready for the trip to Vegas. Thanks, it's been a lot of work and very well worth the effort.

Most of these guys have forgotten more than I'll probably ever know, so the advice you get from them is always right on.

When I brought my car from Europe in 2000, it had the original 15" Campys on it. 285x15x40 on the fronts & 345x15x35 on the rears. My rears had 3/8" spacers on them. The car sat high in my opinion, but the relationship of the tires to the inter fender well edges were fine front & rear. U

Understand that these cars were hand made, so how things fit will be different from car to car. As an example, I recently replaced my hood. First I bought a skin from Hall, it didn't fit. It was almost 1/2" to big on each side. So then I bought a fiberglass hood, while it was easier to shave the sides down to make fit, the curve of the hood was not the same so I couldn't use my hinges because with them I was over 1/2" to high with the hinges in the front. So I have had to use pins to pin it down, this way I could make it follow the shape of the front end. I have come to the conclusion that the later cars, GT-5 and GT-5s had different hoods on them than the earlier cars.

I started the never ending task of upgrading the car when I got it here. One of the first things I did, I changed out the shocks to Koni Coil Overs with adjustable height & dampening. This allowed me to lower the car where I wanted it.

This year I got tired of looking for rubber for my wheels or the prices attached to them, so I went with the Kodiak wheels in 275x17x35x10" fronts and 335x40x17x13 rears. The off sets were measured (many times) so that I wouldn't have to use the rear spacers and would clear inter fender edges front and rear and be able to turn without rubbing at the height I wanted it in the front. The lug nut studs were longer on the rears, 1-5/8", the fronts were shorter at 1-1/4". (Which I'm going to change out to longer ones)

As to the differences of the GT-5 to the stock 71 -74 Pantera's or the Clone GT-5's, there are a few obvious ones that I've noticed. The GT-5's have a larger carrier bearings and I think the hub carrier themselve's are actually bigger, the hub carrier bearings cost twice as much as stock ones, the upper A-Arms are adjustable for camber, the rear engine compartment is squared and not rounded. Electrical is different. The flares on the the GT-5 are fiberglass, not metal. The interior floor pan is dropped 4" and the interior has some minor differemces as to layout and controls. I haven't really been into or taken a part a stock 71-74 car like I have mine, so I can't compare to much else at this point.

Hope this helps.....